We’re there! And here’s a bit of a travel journal for both family/friends and blog readers. (Family: when I say “my husband” and “the kids” instead of naming them, that’s just due to the nature of the blog. And yes, I have pictures with the family in them, too.)
We arrived at Heathrow on Sunday. Flight was delayed, and passport control lines were long, so we finally made it into the city in the early afternoon, got to the rental apartment, unpacked a bit, had some lunch, walked around a bit, and that was about it.
The apartment, by the way, which we booked through Air B&B and is being expensed due to my husband’s spending this days working, is pretty central, and right next to a tube line, making it very convenient. Unfortunately, though it was reasonably quiet until now, it seems that it’s going to be a bit rowdy the next couple nights as we move into the weekend; today especially, pubgoers are celebrating the soccer win today and waving English flags.
Monday: the British Museum, of course.
The Rosetta Stone!
The Assyrians!
Plus, well, other cool stuff, but I’m not much of a photographer.
Tuesday:
Started off scoping out Toffee Park, which bills itself as an “adventure playground.” It’s not actually open except the after-school hours, but it was forecast to rain later, so I wanted to find it before then.
Then walked towards the city center — well, I guess I’m not sure what the official “city center” is, but towards the financial district/St. Paul’s area. Passed by a line-up of food carts,
With all kinds of food, but it was raining by that point and was still a bit early for lunch. Continued to walk past the hideous “Barbican” and into an area in which all manner of men and women were getting their lunch at various prepackaged sandwich shops, but it was hard going to find one with tables for us to sit at. (And so far I haven’t seen a single McDonalds.)
Passed a church-turned-coffeeshop:
But it still was a ministry of sorts, with a bookshelf of Christian literature, and discussion groups and talks of various sorts.
And note that the main area has a newly-tiled floor, but this older area, at the entrance to the toilets, is “tiled” by means of old tombstones.
After a bit more walking, we made our way to the Museum of London, and got drenched in the process. Ugh. Dried off while looking at exhibits on prehistoric, Roman, and Medieval London, but then had to rush through modern times in order to make it back to Toffee Park for the kids to take a look at the inside.
Wednesday
The weather here is really difficult to judge but the forecast was for afternoon rain only, so we hopped on the tube. Started off at Leicester Square, to take a look at the half-price ticket booth (where the half-price tickets on offer for the Lion King turned out to be standing room tickets only). Then went to Trafalger Square, which wasn’t really much, and under construction besides, then Picadilly Circus, which was likewise, well, once big Times Square-like screen and that’s about it; maybe it’s got more Times Square-like excitement later in the day (it was 11:00).
From there we walked to St. James’s Park, where the Changing of the Guard was occuring but we knew there were enough people gathered there we wouldn’t be able to watch. The kids played at a playground briefly and we continued on, passing multiple hot dog stands figuring that when we got to the Houses of Parliament area we’d get more choice.
And, by the way, it is very amusing to see tons of schoolgroups, each in their own uniform, girls in cotton dresses, boys in jackets and ties, sometimes with reflective vests as well, at all the tourist sites/museums.
Anyway, we made it from there we went to Big Ben, where the expected profusion of food carts did not materialize, and I ultimately gave up, and we hopped on the Tube for our next stop, Covent Garden and the London Transport Museum, where we planned to spend the early afternoon when it was forecast to rain anyway.
Covent Garden, it turns out, is an upscale shopping area, but the ubiquitous sandwich shops, on every streetcorner everywhere else, were nowhere to be found. We circled around fruitlessly, got a cookie “appetizer” instead, and eventually had a couple sandwiches at the in-museum cafe. Then we toured the museum (unlike most others, it charged an admission fee, but only for adults, so still not too bad), and took the tube again to Toffee Park, where I dropped the kids off in order to go back to the apartment to work, and from where my husband picked them up a couple hours later.
Thursday
So the forecast was again rain, so the kids and I headed to the Science Museum (yes, it’s really called that). Turns out, this is a part of a cluster of museums which are accessible via a Tube passageway, so they’re perfect for rainy days if you’re already close to a Tube or bus stop.
The museum itself? Well, it’s your generic science museum. We spent most of our time in the space and the Making the Modern World exhibits, as well as seeing an IMAX film.
Here’s a V2 rocket:
and here’s, as the sign says, The World’s Oldest Steam Locomotive.
Friday
We went to Greenwich, to the Royal Observatory, the National Maritime Museum (not that impressive) and the Cutty Sark (19th century clipper ship). It was OK, but I don’t have any good pictures.
And I’ll leave off there, if for no other reason than that my pictures from today are stubbornly refusing to load. We did finally make it to the big name sights on Saturday — the Tower of London and Tower Bridge — since we had waited ’til my husband could join us.
More to come. . .
Images: all own photographs
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